Editing Nobusuke Kishi (section)

==Economic manager of Manchukuo==
In the "[[Manchurian Incident]]" of September 1931, the Japanese [[Kwantung Army]] seized the Chinese region of [[Manchuria]] ruled by the warlord [[Zhang Xueliang]] (the "Young Marshal") and turned it into a [[puppet state]] called "[[Manchukuo]]". Although nominally ruled by [[Puyi]], who had been the last emperor of the [[Qing dynasty]], Manchukuo was in practice a Japanese [[puppet state]] and colony.{{sfn|Maiolo|2010|pp=24}} All of the ministers in the Manchukuo government were Chinese or Manchus, but all of the vice ministers were Japanese, and these were the men who really ruled Manchukuo. From the start, the Japanese Army sought to turn Manchukuo into an industrial powerhouse in support of the [[Empire of Japan|Japanese Empire]] and carried out a policy of forced industrialization. Reflecting the military's ideas about the "national defense state", Manchukuo's industrial development was focused completely upon heavy industry such as steel production for the purposes of arms manufacture.{{sfn|Maiolo|2010|pp=30}}

[[File:Manchukuo map 1939.svg|thumb|Location of [[Manchukuo]] (red) within [[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere|Imperial Japan's sphere of influence]]]]
Kishi has been described as the "mastermind" behind the industrial development of Japan's [[puppet state]] in Manchuria.<ref name="economist.com"/> Kishi had first come to the attention of the [[Kwantung Army]] officers as a rising star in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry who openly touted the policies of [[Nazi Germany]] and called for policies of "industrial rationalization" to eliminate capitalist competition in support of state goals{{emdash}}ideas that accorded with the Army's idea of a "national defense state".{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|pp=268–269}} In 1935, Kishi was appointed Manchukuo's Vice Minister of Industrial Development.{{sfn|Maiolo|2010|pp=30}} Kishi was given complete control of Manchukuo's economy by the military, with the authority to do whatever he liked just as long as industrial growth was increased.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=269}}

In 1936, Kishi was one of the drafters of Manchukuo's first Five-Year Plan.{{sfn|Maiolo|2010|pp=36}} Clearly modeled on the Soviet Union's [[First five-year plan (Soviet Union)|first five-year plan]], Manchukuo's Five-Year Plan was intended to dramatically boost heavy industry in order to vastly increase production of coal, steel, electricity, and weapons for military purposes.{{sfn|Maiolo|2010|pp=30}}<ref name="Hotta, Eri page 125">Hotta, Eri ''Pan-Asianism and Japan's War 1931–1945'', London: Palgrave, 2007 p. 125.</ref> In order to enact the new plan, Kishi persuaded the military to allow private capital into Manchukuo, successfully arguing that the military's policy of having state-owned corporations leading Manchukuo's industrial development was costing the Japanese state too much money.{{sfn|Maiolo|2010|pp=30}} One of the new public-private corporations founded to assist in carrying out the Five-Year Plan was the [[Manchurian Industrial Development Company]] (MIDC), established in 1937, which attracted a staggering 5.2 billion yen in private investment, making it by far the largest capital project in the Japanese empire; by comparison, the total annual budget of Japan's national government was 2.5 billion yen in 1937 and 3.2 billion yen in 1938.<ref name="Hotta, Eri page 125"/> Kishi was instrumental in recruiting [[Nissan Group]] founder [[Yoshisuke Aikawa]] as president of the MIDC.{{sfn|Mimura|2011|p=102}} As part of the deal, the Nissan Group's entire operations were supposed to be transferred over to Manchuria to form the basis of the new MIDC.{{sfn|Mimura|2011|p=102}} The system that Kishi pioneered in Manchuria of a state-guided economy where corporations made their investments on government orders later served as the model for Japan's post-1945 development, and subsequently, that of South Korea and China as well.<ref name="economist.com">{{cite news|title = The Unquiet Past Seven decades on from the defeat of Japan, memories of war still divide East Asia|newspaper = The Economist|date=12 August 2015|url = https://www.economist.com/news/essays/en/asia-second-world-war-ghosts|access-date = 2015-09-09}}</ref>

In order to make it profitable for the ''[[zaibatsu]]'' to invest in Manchukuo, Kishi had a policy of lowering the wages of the workers to the lowest possible point, even below the "line of necessary social reproduction".{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=269}} The purpose of Manchukuo was to provide the industrial basis for the "national defense state", with American historian Mark Driscoll noting that, "Kishi's planned economy was geared towards production goals and profit taking, not competition with other Japanese firms; profit would come primarily from rationalizing labor costs as much as possible. The ''ne plus ultra'' of wage rationalization would be withholding pay altogether{{emdash}}that is, unremunerated forced labor."{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=274}} Accordingly, the Japanese conscripted hundreds of thousands of Chinese as slave labor to work in Manchukuo's heavy industrial plants. In 1937, Kishi signed a decree calling for the use of slave labor to be conscripted both in Manchukuo and in northern China, stating that in these "times of emergency" (i.e. war with China), industry needed to grow at all costs while guaranteeing healthy profits for state and private investors.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=275}} From 1938 to 1944, an average of 1.5 million Chinese were taken every year to work as slaves in Manchukuo.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=276}} The harsh conditions of Manchukuo were well illustrated by the Fushun coal mine, which at any given moment had about 40,000 men working as miners, of whom about 25,000 had to be replaced every year as their predecessors had died due to poor working conditions and low living standards.<ref name="Hotta, Eri page 125"/>

Kishi showed little interest in upholding the rule of law in Manchukuo.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=266}} Kishi expressed views typical of his fellow colonial bureaucrats when he disparagingly referred to Chinese people as "lawless bandits" who were "incapable of governing themselves".{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=266}} According to Kishi's subordinates, he saw little point in following legal or juridical procedures because he felt the Chinese were more akin to dogs than human beings and would only understand brute force.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=266}} According to Driscoll, Kishi always used the term "Manshū" to refer to Manchukuo, instead of "Manshūkoku", which reflected his viewpoint that Manchukuo was not actually a state, but rather just a region rich in resources to be used for Japan's benefit.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=266}}

As a self-described "playboy of the Eastern world", Kishi was known during his four years in Manchukuo for his lavish spending amid much drinking, gambling, and womanizing.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=277}} Kishi spent almost all of his time in Manchukuo's capital, Xinjing (modern [[Changchun]], [[China]]) with the exception of monthly trips on the world famous [[Asia Express]] railroad line to [[Dalian]], where he indulged in his passion for women in alcohol- and sex-drenched weekends.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=267}} When he was locked up in Sugamo prison in 1946 awaiting trial, he reminisced about his Manchukuo years: "I came so much, it was hard to clean it all up”.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=267}} According to Driscoll, "photographs and written descriptions of Kishi during this period never fail to depict a giddy exuberance: laughing and joking while doling out money during the day and looking forward to drinking and fornicating at night."{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|pp=278–279}} Kishi was able to afford his hedonistic, free-spending lifestyle as he had control over millions of yen with virtually no oversight, thanks to being deeply involved in and profiting from the opium trade.{{sfn|Driscoll|2010|p=278}} Before returning to Japan in October 1939, Kishi is reported to have advised his colleagues in the Manchukuo government about corruption: "Political funds should be accepted only after they have [[Money laundering|passed through a 'filter' and been 'cleansed']]. If a problem arises, the 'filter' itself will then become the center of the affair, while the politician, who has consumed the 'clean water', will not be implicated. Political funds become the basis of corruption scandals only when they have not been sufficiently 'filtered.'"{{sfn|Samuels|2001}}